H D - S E N S E I

A view on
Hi-def
DVDs by Gary W. Tooze

Introduction:
Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film
since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was
around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my
horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out
new film experiences. I currently own approximately 7500
DVDs and have reviewed over 3000 myself. I appreciate my
discussion Listserv for furthering my film
education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver.
Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our
Amazon links.

Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who
focused 'too much' on image and sound quality - I
find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction. So be
it, but film will always be my first love and I list my
favorites on the old YMdb site now accessible
HERE.

Product Description: In the surreal, wonderfully cartoon-like comedy
Beetlejuice, a childless couple, Barbara and Adam (Geena Davis and Alec
Baldwin), move to the country only to be killed in a car accident while passing
over a quaint covered bridge. Their ghosts return to their beloved Victorian
home, and find the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, which not only lets them
know they're dead, but comes in handy when they learn that they can continue to
live in their house, even though a new family—from the land of the living—is
moving in. The new owners, fresh from the city, are quite a strange group
themselves, and include the overpowering hipster mom Delia (Catherine O'Hara),
her pompous SoHo interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix), her meek husband Charles
(Jeffrey Jones), and their morose teenage daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder), who
befriends the ghostly couple. Though the threesome attempt to scare Delia from
ruining the house with redecoration and her unpleasant personality, their
attempts fail. As a last resort, they call upon the services of the demented,
terrifying, but hilarious "bioexorcist," "Beetlejuice" (Michael Keaton)....

The Film:

In the mid-'80s, Tim
Burton became the most sought-after director in
Hollywood due to the wholly unanticipated financial
returns of Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). While
Burton found himself deluged with offers of studio
comedy projects, none of them appealed to the renegade
Disney animator's bent for the bizarre. That changed
when he was presented the initial screenplay for
Beetlejuice (1988), an engagingly demented
fantasy-comedy that became one of the biggest successes
of its year.

Scenarist Michael McDowell's fanciful story, which owed
an obvious debt to Topper (1937), caught Burton's
immediate attention. As the director reminisced in his
1994 memoir Burton On Burton, "after Hollywood
hammering me with the concept of story structure, where
the third act doesn't work, and it's got to end with a
little comedy, or a little romance, the script for
Beetlejuice was completely anti all that; it had no
real story, it didn't make any sense, it was more like
stream of consciousness. That script was probably the
most amorphous ever." ....

Although I felt this
Blu-ray
image quality gave a fairly true representation of its
original theatrical viewing - there are no dominant
high-definition characteristics to extol. It is not
particularly detailed and although colors have a
tendency to become vibrant when called upon - for the
most part they are dullish and relatively flat for
1080P. It is hard to believe that Beetlejuice is
20 years old
now but that is probably the most mitigating factor in
its comparatively weak appearance. It doesn't ever
really look 'bad' but it never climbs the heights that
some may expect from this new format. There
is some minor softness while background noise exists in
a reasonable amount. Good film grain is visible.
Technically it is
single-layered with the feature size being a modest 19.4
Gig. I don't see strong evidence of DNR or edge
enhancements. The VC-1encode does a its job but viewer
expectations should be tempered with appreciating the
film's age - it probably can't look much better than it
does on this
Blu-ray.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

Audio & Music:
The major bump is to TrueHD and it has some moments of
decent separation. It is never outstanding but some
scattered sounds trickle to the rear speakers. Overall
it is very clean and dialogue clear. Danny Elfman
creates another very memorable score (that is also
accessible as stand-alone in 5.1) and we have Harry
Belafonte performing "Day-O" in that humorous
scene. There are optional DUBs and subtitles
offered in
a myriad of options identifying this edition is Region
FREE to be sold across the globe.

Extras:
Aside from the aforementioned Music only track we don't
have much substance here. We get 3 episodes of the
animated Beetlejuice TV series running just over
30 minutes in total. So, no Burton commentary or
subsequent featurettes which seems as shame as the film
has a following for all its quirky weirdness.

NOTE: My screener edition didn't come with a CD sampler
or booklet which the consumer package will have.

Bottom line:
I'm not one of those who really enjoyed Beetlejuice.
It was definitely interesting but I found the meandering
story and pragmatic special effects disengaged me from
any real entertainment value. The
Blu-ray

image didn't endear the film to me either so while I'm
not recommending - others may see the glass as half-full
and indulge. The positives might be the surreal
afterlife
aspects of Beetlejuice and it's hard not to revel
a bit in Keaton's over-the-top performance.
To each his own. To end on a positive note; the
Blu-ray
will easily give you the best and most accurate
presentation of the film for your home theater.